I’d like to discuss the finer points of getting rid of vs. saving boxes. Recently my husband retired from serving 12 years on the Covington School Board. That meant we could finally turn in 10 large “banker boxes” (equivalent to three file cabinets) of School Board files for shredding then recycling. This left several glorious feet of open space in one of our closets. My first impulse was to put something in the open space, but since I’ve been getting rid of other space hogs in our house, I honestly don’t have any good candidates to take this open space. What a dilemma!

On the other hand, I save boxes. I don’t know if you would call it a hobby or a compulsion but you never know when you’re going to need a box for a present or to mail something. So, I’ve designated a section of our basement for various size boxes (some nested and others collapsible). I also save reusable gift bags, tissue paper, bubble wrap, and a variety of small boxes, tins, old film canisters, and pill containers. These come in handy for containing small objects and doing DIY home organizing. My husband thinks we have enough. My question is can you ever have too many empty boxes or containers as long as they neatly nest into each other?

PS: This photo may look like a mess but I can usually find the size container I want quite quickly.

I also save things like larger shopping bags and gift bags with tissue paper. When my children go to birthday parties, we just put the present in a gift bag. It’s so much easier than wrapping it. I’m not much of box-saver, though. Just last night we went through our storage in the basement and I found 3 boxes of lecture notes that I used for teaching — when I realized that they were for classes that I haven’t taught in 15 years, I figured it was OK to get rid of all those notes! Ha-ha 🙂